On A Roll
Corin figured out how to roll over last week. He can roll back to front over either shoulder. Now, all he needs to do is figure out how to go front to back, and he’ll be on his way to mobility.
Making a Friend (Literally)
A few weeks ago, Lily spontaneously told me that there was someone at the door.
“Who is it, Lily?”
“It’s Thaddeus!”
“Who?”
“Tha-dee-us.”
“Thaddeus?”
“Yes. Thaddeus the Gargoyle. We need to let him in.”
So I opened the door, and in walked Lily’s first imaginary friend, who, she informed me, was a statue and a very kind monster. At first, I thought “Thaddeus the Gargoyle” must be a book that she had read in preschool, but I googled that title and found nothing. I also found no young children’s books on gargoyles on Amazon. It seems instead that Lily created the name by putting together two features of her week; her preschool teacher had brought a tadpole called Thaddeus into class, and our neighbors had trimmed the hedge along their fence, revealing a small decorative statue which Matt had identified to her as a gargoyle.
Hence Thaddeus the Gargoyle, who is sometimes called by his full name, many times called just by Thaddeus, and often, when Lily is talking at top speed, slurred into something more like “Thass.” Thaddeus is a pretty consistent companion. He and Lily eat together, play around the house together, and go to the playground together. She holds him when he’s crying, smiles when he’s laughing and bossily informs him all of the rules that she knows. He came with us to Sea World on Saturday and had quite a good time, Lily having made sure that I rubbed him with plenty of sunscreen, and he commuted home with Matt earlier in the week, though not in the same car. Apparently, Thaddeus has his own car which is green and is called Fauna.
My favorite moment, though, was when I gave Lily a glass of water one hot afternoon, and she told me that Thaddeus was thirsty too. I reached back into the cupboard to get a second cup, but she stopped me with a tone rife with shock at my stupidity. “No! Thaddeus needs an imaginary cup.” Duh, mom.
Mother’s Day Tea
Lily’s preschool had a Mother’s Day Tea this Thursday, and I had been looking forward to it like a kid waiting for Christmas. I knew that they had been working on art projects in class, and I couldn’t wait to get my first handmade mommy gifts and spend some time at the preschool. When the day finally came, I got a lovely vase made of an iced coffee bottle covered in tissue paper and glue, a felt flower corsage, and and a little breakfast bag with a mommy face decorated with dark brown string that looked surprisingly accurate as my often haphazardly done hair. Treasures, all. But I also got an intangible gift when I learned that the children had prepared a little music program too. The music teacher had modified songs from South Pacific to give them toddler and Mother’s Day themes. Lily was a bit shy during the performance, but she clearly knew most of the lyrics and motions. Her favorite, which she sings around the house now, is “I’m Going to Wash Those Germs Right Off of my Hands.”
Sabotage
Do you remember how the tank fish in Finding Nemo plot to destroy the water filter in a bid to escape from the dentist’s office? Well, apparently our house had a water filter of sorts, and Lily decided to take it out. She had two hairbrushes: a basic plastic brush from Target that she called the “comb brush” and a wooden-handled bristled brush dubbed the “soft brush.” She has preferred the soft brush ever since my mom got it for her, but as it was not as good with wet hair, I used the comb brush every night. (“Curse you, AquaScum!”)
Now for the sabotage. The comb brush’s handle was cushioned with silicone gel encased in soft plastic. It might not have occurred to her that this was attackable, but the dogs got ahold of a twin brush a few months back and chewed on it until the silicone was exposed, causing me to throw it away. I did not even know that Lily was paying attention then, but she must have been because this week, I came home from a dentist appointment to find her comb brush handle punctured, but punctured rather neatly, and thus obviously not by the dogs. I asked Matt, who had been watching the kids, if he knew anything about the brush, but he did not. So I asked Lily if she had eaten her brush, and she readily admitted that she had, adding, with a sly smile, “But there’s still the soft brush.”
Though somewhat amused and impressed by her strategy, I was concerned that she might have ingested some of the silicone, so we called her pediatrician and poison control. The woman from poison control told us that the silicone, though not quite good for her, was not toxic, and the pediatrician said that the amount in question (Matt estimated that she could only have gotten about a lima bean-sized portion) was not likely to cause an obstruction. So I told Lily that it was not good to break things on purpose, and that was the end of that...
...until I noticed water on the wall by my laundry room: four unmistakable drops running down the wall at about Lily height. She uses me as a towel and napkin all the time, so it seemed that she had washed her hands in the sink and then wiped them casually on the wall on her way back to her room. I had my hands full when I noticed the drops, so I just made a mental note to come wipe them up later. Then, of course, I forgot about them altogether for a day or two. But when I saw them again, they did not look like the flat stain of water left on a painted wall. Instead, they looked exactly as they had looked before: four unmistakeable drops, still glossy and still rounded up from the wall. When I touched them, they seemed made of a very soft, clear clay, stretchable like a delicate dough. Most of the material rubbed off into a cloudy ball about the size of a pea--or, when flattened, a lima bean.
“Lily, what did you do with the stuff from your comb brush?”
“I ate it.”
“You actually ate it?”
“Yes.”
“But did it taste yummy, or did it taste nasty?”
“It was nasty.”
“So what did you do with it? Did you chew it and swallow, or did you spit it out?”
“I spit it out and put it on the wall.”
Well, so much for worries about ingestion. Ideas for future science fair projects about the properties of silicone gel mixed with saliva? Check. Ideas for how to remove the thin but still unmistakable silicone film that is now adhered to my wall like rubber cement? Anyone?
Corin figured out how to roll over last week. He can roll back to front over either shoulder. Now, all he needs to do is figure out how to go front to back, and he’ll be on his way to mobility.
Making a Friend (Literally)
A few weeks ago, Lily spontaneously told me that there was someone at the door.
“Who is it, Lily?”
“It’s Thaddeus!”
“Who?”
“Tha-dee-us.”
“Thaddeus?”
“Yes. Thaddeus the Gargoyle. We need to let him in.”
So I opened the door, and in walked Lily’s first imaginary friend, who, she informed me, was a statue and a very kind monster. At first, I thought “Thaddeus the Gargoyle” must be a book that she had read in preschool, but I googled that title and found nothing. I also found no young children’s books on gargoyles on Amazon. It seems instead that Lily created the name by putting together two features of her week; her preschool teacher had brought a tadpole called Thaddeus into class, and our neighbors had trimmed the hedge along their fence, revealing a small decorative statue which Matt had identified to her as a gargoyle.
Hence Thaddeus the Gargoyle, who is sometimes called by his full name, many times called just by Thaddeus, and often, when Lily is talking at top speed, slurred into something more like “Thass.” Thaddeus is a pretty consistent companion. He and Lily eat together, play around the house together, and go to the playground together. She holds him when he’s crying, smiles when he’s laughing and bossily informs him all of the rules that she knows. He came with us to Sea World on Saturday and had quite a good time, Lily having made sure that I rubbed him with plenty of sunscreen, and he commuted home with Matt earlier in the week, though not in the same car. Apparently, Thaddeus has his own car which is green and is called Fauna.
My favorite moment, though, was when I gave Lily a glass of water one hot afternoon, and she told me that Thaddeus was thirsty too. I reached back into the cupboard to get a second cup, but she stopped me with a tone rife with shock at my stupidity. “No! Thaddeus needs an imaginary cup.” Duh, mom.
Mother’s Day Tea
Lily’s preschool had a Mother’s Day Tea this Thursday, and I had been looking forward to it like a kid waiting for Christmas. I knew that they had been working on art projects in class, and I couldn’t wait to get my first handmade mommy gifts and spend some time at the preschool. When the day finally came, I got a lovely vase made of an iced coffee bottle covered in tissue paper and glue, a felt flower corsage, and and a little breakfast bag with a mommy face decorated with dark brown string that looked surprisingly accurate as my often haphazardly done hair. Treasures, all. But I also got an intangible gift when I learned that the children had prepared a little music program too. The music teacher had modified songs from South Pacific to give them toddler and Mother’s Day themes. Lily was a bit shy during the performance, but she clearly knew most of the lyrics and motions. Her favorite, which she sings around the house now, is “I’m Going to Wash Those Germs Right Off of my Hands.”
Sabotage
Do you remember how the tank fish in Finding Nemo plot to destroy the water filter in a bid to escape from the dentist’s office? Well, apparently our house had a water filter of sorts, and Lily decided to take it out. She had two hairbrushes: a basic plastic brush from Target that she called the “comb brush” and a wooden-handled bristled brush dubbed the “soft brush.” She has preferred the soft brush ever since my mom got it for her, but as it was not as good with wet hair, I used the comb brush every night. (“Curse you, AquaScum!”)
Now for the sabotage. The comb brush’s handle was cushioned with silicone gel encased in soft plastic. It might not have occurred to her that this was attackable, but the dogs got ahold of a twin brush a few months back and chewed on it until the silicone was exposed, causing me to throw it away. I did not even know that Lily was paying attention then, but she must have been because this week, I came home from a dentist appointment to find her comb brush handle punctured, but punctured rather neatly, and thus obviously not by the dogs. I asked Matt, who had been watching the kids, if he knew anything about the brush, but he did not. So I asked Lily if she had eaten her brush, and she readily admitted that she had, adding, with a sly smile, “But there’s still the soft brush.”
Though somewhat amused and impressed by her strategy, I was concerned that she might have ingested some of the silicone, so we called her pediatrician and poison control. The woman from poison control told us that the silicone, though not quite good for her, was not toxic, and the pediatrician said that the amount in question (Matt estimated that she could only have gotten about a lima bean-sized portion) was not likely to cause an obstruction. So I told Lily that it was not good to break things on purpose, and that was the end of that...
...until I noticed water on the wall by my laundry room: four unmistakable drops running down the wall at about Lily height. She uses me as a towel and napkin all the time, so it seemed that she had washed her hands in the sink and then wiped them casually on the wall on her way back to her room. I had my hands full when I noticed the drops, so I just made a mental note to come wipe them up later. Then, of course, I forgot about them altogether for a day or two. But when I saw them again, they did not look like the flat stain of water left on a painted wall. Instead, they looked exactly as they had looked before: four unmistakeable drops, still glossy and still rounded up from the wall. When I touched them, they seemed made of a very soft, clear clay, stretchable like a delicate dough. Most of the material rubbed off into a cloudy ball about the size of a pea--or, when flattened, a lima bean.
“Lily, what did you do with the stuff from your comb brush?”
“I ate it.”
“You actually ate it?”
“Yes.”
“But did it taste yummy, or did it taste nasty?”
“It was nasty.”
“So what did you do with it? Did you chew it and swallow, or did you spit it out?”
“I spit it out and put it on the wall.”
Well, so much for worries about ingestion. Ideas for future science fair projects about the properties of silicone gel mixed with saliva? Check. Ideas for how to remove the thin but still unmistakable silicone film that is now adhered to my wall like rubber cement? Anyone?
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